Why Did The Mayflower Compact

Since the Pilgrims did not intend to settle at Cape Cod, they did not have a land patent, (a document that granted land to a colony, but didn't give permission to establish local law there), to settle in that area. The pilgrims worried that they did not have permission to settle there and they were concerned that without any social order, the colony would fail, much like earlier colonies did. Since some of the passengers on the ship were not separatists, they questioned the pilgrims’ authority. As a result the colonists wrote a social contract called The Mayflower Compact that established a local government and obliged the people to follow the rules of this government until they could obtain a new patent. The colony of Plymouth thus